A hacker conference that’s all about passwords, PIN codes, and digital authentication.

Passwords are the most prevalent form of authentication in the digital age, and are the first line of defense against unauthorized access in most systems. Even if you are using some other form of authentication for a particular service, there’s still a password in the chain somewhere — it all comes back to relying on something somewhere being password-protected. But after 50 years of computing evolution, 123456 and password still top the list of most frequently used passwords. And nearly a half billion passwords have been compromised over the last five years alone, including breaches from companies such as Adobe, Twitter, Forbes, LinkedIn, Yahoo, and LivingSocial. Clearly, we have a systemic problem with password authentication – and it's not going away any time soon.

Passwords is the first and only conference of its kind, where leading researchers, password crackers, and experts in password security from around the globe gather in order to better understand the challenges surrounding digital authentication, and how to adequately address them. While large mainstream conferences tend to focus on current hot topics in the information security industry, Passwords events explore fringe conversations on everything from analysis and education to creating, securing, cracking, and exploiting authentication solutions. And unlike other events where the speaker is rushed in and out, Passwords provides an intimate environment for participants to directly engage speakers before, during, and after their presentations.

Passwords was launched in Bergen, Norway in 2010, motivated by dissatisfaction with the robustness and usability of current authentication solutions. Now in its sixth year, Passwords is held twice a year on two continents, and Passwords15 Las Vegas marks the 8th global event. 

Official Twitter hashtag for 2015: #passwords15

Official IRC channel #passwordscon on Freenode